


As Twixt Two Equal Armies

by dancinbutterfly



Series: The Ecstasy [4]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: ABO Politics, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Discussion of Children, Exclusion by teammates, Gender Issues, Hockey, Institutional sexism, Isolation, KHL, Learning English, Love Confessions, M/M, Omegaism, Phone Calls & Telephones, Phone Sex, Prejudice, Skype, hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zhenya's second year in the super league isn't an easy one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Twixt Two Equal Armies

**Author's Note:**

> I dont know anything about David King except that he was coach for Geno's 2nd year in the KHL. I took huge liberties with his personality. I have no idea if they're right. Just suspend your disbelief :D

The next season is a blur. He keeps to himself and his game suffers. What did they expect? None of his teammates will look him in the eye so the camaraderie he used to lean on has evaporated. All he has his his cell phone and laptop - his family and Dima. 

It’s screamingly lonely. Hockey is a team sport. Omegas are the most pack-oriented dynamics. He’s done some reading, a lot of reading in all his free alone time if he’s honest, about the biological implication of omega needs. There are natural hormones that being in a group are supposed to release for an omega to help stay healthy. He’s living without them. He isn’t meant to be living in isolation like this. It’s draining him dry. 

When he’s in Magnitogorsk he lives with his parents in the houser he bought them. It’s practically palatial. His mother, father, Denis and the new dog, Geoffery, fill the empty spaces with their affection and camaraderie but he still aches. His body was put through the worst sort of punishment over the off season and he’s not on his best foot yet- something the team keeps reminding and reminding and reminding him.

He takes Dima’s advice and invests in a good iPod. He downloads American rap and Russian pop and audiobooks and is never without his headphones when he’s off the ice. The reporters actually comment on it, asking him what he’s listening to, if it’s getting him pumped for each game.

He lies. He names the first song title he can think of to get them to leave. He just wants to hit the ice and do what he’s meant to.

Dima calls him after it happens in a Moscow game. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying to me.”

Zhenya sighs. “I lie to everyone. It’s become half my job. I skate and I lie.” 

“Not to me.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I can take it from everyone, literally everyone, but you,” Zhenya snaps. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He has a headache. It’s a hormone headache most likely according to the staff doctors due to the high strength suppressants. They give him pain killers he doesn’t take and tell him to suck it up in not so many words.

Over the line, Dima sighs. “I wasn’t- Zhenya. I just worry.”

“You’re not my mother. Save the worry for your stocks and bonds.”

“Oh fuck you,” Dima drawls. “Don’t punish me for loving you, asshole. Just because you’re upset doesn’t mean you can’t be decent.”

The line goes dead silent because oh. Oh god. “Dima?”

“Yeah, I just heard myself.” He laughs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No,” Zhenya agrees, leaning back in the bus seat. He’s alone in the back. No one sits with him anymore. “Obviously. Did you mean what you said though?”

He sighs, long and low straight from his chest. “How could I not love you Zhenya? How could I possibly not?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he feels tears prick his eyes. He’s never be loved before. Not by someone outside his family. It feels like being rolled over by a warm wave. “I don’t know.”

“What can I say, I’ve got a weak spot for hot, young hockey players.” He can hear Dima’s smile. “I can say it now. That’s nice. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

There’s a pause on the line then Dima says firmly, “You don’t have to say it back.”

“I know that,” he snaps because of course he does. Dima’s never made him feel beholden to him. “I do though.” And he does. Dima is funny and open-minded and taught him things but gets so angry and so sad and isn’t afraid to show it like most alpha’s would be. He’s special. He’s Zhenya’s. “My alpha,” he whispers, so low that no one else on the bus can hear him.

“My omega,” Dima purrs back. “I have to stop there or I would need to break you down, baby slut.”

God yes. Zhenya wants that after the day he’s had. “Okay. Later?”

“Promise.”

Zhenya chokes then clears his throat. “I love you,” he repeats. He means it. It’s scary. It’s exhilarating. It makes him feel better than he’s felt in months. The feeling and words are the most solid anchor he’s had in over a year and he clings to it.

“I love you too, “ Dima says. The gravity of the each world hits like a pleasant blow, a check to the boards that wakes him up and makes him feel alive. He doesn’t even feel it when he gets elbowed getting off the bus.

He takes off towards his car at a run and maybe he skips once on the way. Someone calls him a pussy bitch but it doesn’t touch him. Dima loves him. Nothing they say matters. He’s fucking bulletproof.

His mother is in the living room when he gets home. Geoffrey barks at his feet but it’s his mother who stops him before he makes his way upstairs to his room. He gave the master suite to his parents but his own suite is comfortable and spacious. 

She holds out a hand to him. He drops his gear bag on the floor, crossing to her to take it in both of his. “You look good Zhenyushka,” Natalia says. “What’s different today?”

He debates whether or not he should say. On the one hand, its so new it feels fragile as a snow flake but on the other it is Dima and there is nothing fragile about what they share. His family knows him, knows what he’s done for Zhenya, who he is to him. They don’t know everything but hey, boundaries. They don’t need to know all the little dirty things or about Dima’s orientation when they already have enough to worry about with Zhenya’s dynamic. But they like him. His father isn’t fond of the age difference and thinks he’s far to liberal but over all, they do like him. 

Since everyone pulled away from him, his family is all he has. His mama is his best friend. This is news to share with his best friend isn’t it? If not this, then what?

“Dima told me he loved me.”

Natalia pulls his hand to her chest and beams up at him. “Oh, that’s wonderful. He’ll make a wonderful mate.” She just can’t stop smiling. “You’d be a fabulous father, baby.”

Zhenya stares at her. Does she think he’s going to quit hockey, settle down and be bred? The shine in her eyes clearly says she does. She’s been so distressed since he was outed to the organization he can imagine her relief at the idea but its just that. An idea. He’s not giving up hockey. He’d rather give up breathing. 

“We’re not changing anything, Mama. We just…” he searches for the right words. “We said it. That’s all.”

“Of course.” She squeezes his hand. She obviously doesn’t believe him. It makes his stomach curl. His elation deflating like a wrinkled, old balloon.

“Mama, I’m serious. I’m not leaving the league.”

“You say that but baby, don’t pretend you don’t want children. I’ve seen you with your cousins. You’re brilliant with them. You adore them. You want your own. Dima could make you so happy.”

Children are not something he lets himself think about. Ever. Not even when he’s around his little cousins. He’s on suppressants and birth control and he can’t think like that. Being bred is something far away, to be reached later if at all. 

The problem is his mama isn’t wrong. The idea of having babies with Dima is terrifying because of how easy it is to imagine, to want. They would have his changeable blue eyes, his own messy brown waves. Jesus Christ. He can’t even contemplate it. Not any of it because there is only one thing he can give himself to. 

He’s already mated in every way that matters but it’s not to Dima. “Not without hockey, he can’t.” And that’s the thing. Dima, of all people, understands that. 

“I know you love hockey” his mother demands, fire sparking behind her eyes. “You think I don’t know? After everything we did? Everything we’ve been through as a family but things have changed since you were outed, and-“

“I’m tired, Mama. It was a long bus ride,” he says cutting her off. He pulls free of her grip and makes his way out of the room. Geoffrey follows on his heels, panting softly as they walk to Zhenya’s room.

He kicks off his shoes and flops down on his bed. Geoffrey follows suit on the floor with a huff.

Staring up at the ceiling, Zhenya fishes his phone out of his pocket. He hits speed dial five and waits. After three rings the familiar voice picks up and says his name.

“Metiya,” he begs. “I need to stop thinking. Take me a part. Like you said.”

“Anything,” Dima promises. “Anything.”

~*~*~

Over the course of the season, Dima’s been working with him on English. “For when you get to Pittsburgh,” he declares, laughing. It’s an idea he brings up after thoroughly Russian phone-sex. 

Zhenya can’t argue with that because it would mean arguing against his dream. Also, since the team found out he’s an omega, he hasn’t had anything else to do. So for the last six months the number of their conversations that are in English have been growing.

Well, to be more accurate, their conversations have been half in English. Words here and there slipping from Russian to English and back again. 

“You want to be able to talk to your fellow Penguins, don’t you little bird?” 

“Pfft,” Zhenya replies. Little bird was something Dima had taken to calling him ever since he found out his NHL team was the Penguins. He thought it was funny. Secretly, Zhenya thought it was cute but he protested because he had a good four inches on Dima and was anything but little.

He rewards him with Skype sessions that melt Zhenya into puddles of slick and desperation mixed with English curses. Dima croons that he’s proud of him which usually has Zhenya falling apart. The better his sentences, the filthier the Skype or phone sex. Needless to say, Zhenya is learning fast. 

He has no one to practice with on Metallurg other than David so his game is improving as well. David is more than willing to spend time before games and after running him up and down the ice, working on his stick work. 

David’s also a beta from Canada who played in the NHL. Zhenya can understand English better than he speaks it so he’s happy to listen to his stories of North America and the NHL while he skates suicides none of his teammates would ask for.

“Yeah I know Mario,” he says one day towards the end of their one-on-ones. Zhenya perks up. Mario is one of his personal heroes just like Sidney Crosby is his dream teammate. Both are mythic and distant but somehow real enough to keep hope alive. 

“Da?”

“Yeah. We’re not tight or anything. He was way out of my league but I remember him. We came up about the same time, right after they lifted the sanctions on omegas in the league.” David smiles. His smiles are wide, bland things but they always reach his eyes. “He played nothing and everything like you.”

“What mean?”

“What do you mean?” David corrects.

“What do you mean?” Zhenya parrots. 

“His style was totally different. Canadian so a little less fast and loose, less wild around the edges but the fire. You know what I mean by fire?”

Zhenya translates it in his head and thinks he does. He nods. 

“He has the same fire you do. He was one of the first omegas to be great and he knew it. He had something to prove.” He claps Zhenya’s shoulder. “Like you only the NHL didn’t stop him.” He squeezes through the pads. “We’ll get you there, Zhenya.”

“Get where?”

“To the NHL.” David says. He reminds Zhenya of Dima in that moment. 

He realizes with a start that it’s because David and Dima are closer in age than he and Dima are. He forgot somewhere along the line, that Dima is almost twice his age. He’s eighteen now and older alphas are with younger omegas all the time but he really feels it in that moment, in the way David and Dima can both have such certainty about, fuck, _anything_.

“My passport,” he says, brokenly. “Contract.”

“I believe you can get through that. Your agent is working on it isn’t he?”

His agent has been working with Anya Gomorov for the past six months. They’ve gotten him separate hotel rooms from the rest of his teammates. They’ve prevented the GMs from putting actual surveillance on him. They’ve prevented the organization from putting Dima on a no-entry list for games. 

Other than that, they’ve done fuck all. He’s still in Magnitogorsk. He’s still hiding in the KHL.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t see the point.

“We run drill again?”

“Lean into it this time,” David says. “Thighs almost parallel to the ice.” He holds his arm up to show Zhenya what parallel means.

He takes off down like he’s flying. Pucks litter the ice and he navigates them cleanly. Nothing feels like this. Not even sex. It’s why he stays, why he puts up with the suppressants and the abuse and he can’t let himself forget that.

He takes the long way home. It’s supposed to be spring but early march in Siberia is still has snow on the ground. He cruises his city and wonders what it will be like to give his entire youth to this place. 

It could be worse. His parents are here, his big brother. His childhood friends come back at Christmas, Easter, on vacations. Magnitogorsk is not a pretty place but it’s hardly hell on earth.

But it’s not the USA. It’s not Pittsburgh. It’s not the fucking NHL. Tears sting his eyes and he bites his lip, trying to remember how he got himself into this mess. 

He remembers discovering he was an omega when he was eleven, heat creeping up on him as he walked home from school. He remembered sobbing against his mother’s shoulder because hockey. As a little boy he’d felt like his world was ending because he would lose hockey. He remembers the few time he was able to feel proud of who he was, on his knees, in his heats, but he doesn’t remember how exactly he wound up here.

It would be so easy to blame Dima. That first night was a mess but that heat would have smelled up the whole floor and the whole hotel was only four stories. People from his team were on every floor. His inevitable reveal was why he let himself be with Dima in the first place. That’s not really the source either.

The problem is the fucking omegaist policies of the KHL and his country as a whole. He doesn’t know why it’s taken him so long to really get that. Dima’s been telling him that for almost a year. 

Maybe he’s just stubborn. He didn’t hear it because he hadn’t wanted to. Sitting under fucking oppression and pretending he wasn’t like a moron. 

He always wondered growing up how his maternal omega-grandfather got through his whole life tied up in pre-suppressant omegaist rules. The very idea is revolting. 

He can’t convince himself anymore that his situation is much better.

He pulls the car over to a small pile of snow by a McDonald’s, the most American thing in the city. He puts his head on the wheel and breathes out through his nose. 

Zhenya doesn’t know where to go from here. What he does know is that he’s going to do something. 

He’s got more than enough time to figure it the fuck out. More importantly he’s got people to help it.Maybe its time to use that fire David talked about for himself instead of for a team that doesn’t even want him


End file.
